In 1951, the science fiction writer Cyril M. Kornbluth published a story called “The Marching Morons” in Galaxy Magazine. (You can read the whole thing here.) It tells the story of a near future world in which stupid people with limited skills overpopulate the world, forcing a dwindling group of intelligent people to take on…
I am going to try to be as analytical as I can about this. The topic is “Can a machine — ChatGPT — simulate everything about me that is important to how I do work . . . and if so, am I obsolete?” To be fair, though, that’s not a topic on which I…
More than 1,000 people including Elon Musk, Andrew Yang, and Steve Wozniak signed a statement calling for a six-month pause in development of large-language-model-based artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT. “Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” the statement says….
I admit it: I’m obsessed with why ChatGPT and other AI services can’t be funny. I’m convinced the answer is that true humor demands an unexpected shift in perspective, and AI machines, trained to mimic patterns in what they’ve read, have problems with both “unexpected” and “shift in perspective.” Monty Python is the master of…
Yesterday I published ChatGPT’s version of my bio. It is highly plausible but full of falsehoods. Today, I reveal what was false and attempt to figure out the source of the lies. In what follows, quoted material is from ChatGPT’s response to “Who is Josh Bernoff?” The numbers count the lies. There are 14 lies…
I asked ChatGPT “Who is Josh Bernoff?” The result is below. I count 11 lies in 142 words. How many can you find? (Blatant hint: my actual bio is on this site.) I look forward to reading your answers in the comments. Analysis tomorrow. Josh Bernoff is a well-known author, speaker, and strategic advisor on…
Ethan Mollick, associate professor at Penn’s Wharton School, required his students to use the AI writing tool ChatGPT in his classes last semester. You should definitely check out his description of the experience; it’s full of real-world insights that are far more valuable than the noodlings of naysayers. Start with the intention to learn Unimaginative…
Associate deans at the Vanderbilt University office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) sent an email to the whole Peabody College community after a man shot eight people at Michigan State University. The deans made the ill-considered choice to use ChatGPT to write the note. But regardless of that choice, such post-shooting sympathy notes are…
The New York Times published a piece regarding university policies and strategies for students using ChatGPT or similar tools to prepare coursework. For each strategy, I’ll assess how realistic it is and what the consequences might be. Articles like this one, as well as the policies they describe, are shortsighted, because AI text generation is…